Gilmour, Jane --- "Partnerships: Can partnerships be an agent for change in corporations?" [2002] AltLawJl 4; (2002) 27(1) Alternative Law Journal 11

• PARTNERSHIPS
• Can partnerships be an agent for change in corporations?

PARTNERSHIPS
Can partnerships be an agent for change in corporations?

JANE GILMOUR^[*] discusses how Earthwatch Institute, a non-confrontational NGO, uses partnerships with corporates to create an environmentally sustainable future.

In 2002, globally, Earthwatch will place several hundred corporate employees on field research projects around the world. The employees will spend 10–14 days working as part of a team of volunteers assisting research scientists collect data that will inform management strategies for conserving species and ecosystems and contribute to better understanding of changes affecting the world’s natural resources and cultural heritage. These people will walk transects in the tundra of northern Canada collecting samples that will help scientists understand how global warming is affecting these very specialised ecosystems. They will stag-watch for possums in the Central Highlands of Victoria to get reliable statistical data on populations of endangered species threatened by current logging regimes. They will record the activities of birds in the rainforests of northern Australia to try to understand what is happening to seed dispersal in the rain forest and how this is likely to affect the long-term viability of rainforest fragments.

Why are they there? Why are companies sending their own employees out into the field to engage in these sorts of activities. What does any of this have to do with business?

These are all legitimate questions, the answers to which can be found through another set of questions:

• What is the role of business in society and how does it fulfil that role?

• How do companies align values and behaviour?

• Is the path to corporate accountability to be found through a continued analysis and practice which sees the problem (or problems) as being external to the core functions of business?

Microeconomic reform and deregulation have fundamentally changed the context and way in which business operates in Australia. Through this process many gains but also many areas of concern and distrust have emerged. While financial capital has definitely been built as a result of this shift, social capital has been eroded. When services are withdrawn or altered, when human interaction is replaced by other forms of communication, when we purchase products without knowing where or how they are produced, there is a growing sense of alienation or disconnection in our society and it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain a sense of community responsibility — either locally or globally.

Business has benefited from these changes — there would be few businesses that would like to see the clock turned back — but in the process they have become the focus for much community disquiet.

This is the context in which businesses and community organisations are beginning to explore the concept of corporate social responsibility or corporate citizenship. It is in this context that businesses are beginning to re-assess their role in society.

Businesses interact with their communities in many ways. The processes and decisions of companies affect a whole range of stakeholders from employees to customers, to suppliers, to their local community (eg, around their work sites) to interest groups, to the wider community, to government and of course to investors and shareholders. The impacts of their operation on these various communities can be economic, social and environmental.

Corporate social responsibility is about how companies manage the triple bottom line impacts for all, not just some, stakeholders. That is the new definition of business. In the end the community gives business the licence to operate.

A key component of this whole debate has been environmental responsibility. Chemical companies and resource companies led the way. The debate has now broadened and companies in all sectors are seeing that the triple bottom line of environmental, social and economic impact applies equally to their operations.

Earthwatch Institute is an international not for profit organisation committed to promoting the sustainable conservation of natural resources and cultural heritage through support for scientific field research and public education. We support an international program of 140 research projects, providing both field grants and volunteers to help with the field data collection. Globally Earthwatch recruits close to 4000 paying or sponsored volunteers each year and contributes in excess of US$3.5 million in direct field grants. We are a non-confrontational NGO, working to achieve on the ground outcomes based on sound science. All the research supported is peer-reviewed and and the research outcomes are published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Through our publications we also promote the results of the research to the general public. At a time of reducing government funds for research around the world, Earthwatch is one of the largest private sponsors of field research and one of the few sources of long-term support particularly for monitoring work.

Over recent years, Earthwatch Institute has worked with a number of companies in various forms of partnership. We have done this for a number of reasons:

• to expand the base of support for our research and conservation work;

• to have access to the skills and expertise that the business sector can bring to our activities;

• to maximise the educational opportunities presented by our field projects and through that process to seek to engender changes in value systems within companies; and

• to engage companies in the business of triple bottom-line accountability and sustainability.

Our activities with companies have been primarily through employee participation, but we have also worked with companies to undertake a range of educational activities including seminars and publications directed at raising corporate awareness of environmental issues and the contribution that they can make to sustainable outcomes.

What we seek to do through these interactions is to influence the value systems within companies so that they are more sensitive to natural and cultural heritage issues and more likely to take a proactive role in environmental responsibility. Our experience has shown that these interactions can be more or less successful in creating this shift of values within companies and that there are particular internal circumstances within companies that contribute to making them more effective.

What are these internal circumstances that contribute to more or less successful outcomes?

First, there needs to be buy-in to the program right through the company. This is the hardest thing to achieve and there will always be pockets of resistance. ‘Another head office initiative, what does it have to do with us?’ is the sort of reaction where there has not been adequate internal communication and buy-in to the purpose of the partnership and the projected outcomes. This means that there need to be accountabilities at the manager level that provide a business framework into which the program sits. That is, there needs to be a good business case for the partnership.

Another important factor is validation of the program — both at CEO level and at local manager level. If someone comes back from an Earthwatch field project, fired up about environmental responsibility and neither the experience nor the values are validated by the local manager then there is little purpose in the involvement. It has been interesting with one of our corporate partners to see the change in line manager response to the employee fellowship program over the years. In the first couple of years of the program, a number of the managers were not interested. They could not see the benefit of one of their staff participating on one of these projects. A few years down the track, most of the managers see this program as fitting into key accountabilities and see real advantage in having people in their group who are enthusiastic spokespeople for environmental responsibility.

Finally the company needs to acknowledge that we can add value. This may be by seeking our advice on issues, or inviting us to contribute to the development of internal strategies or communications. Such action clearly places the partnership within the broader framework of the business operation.

We firmly believe that the ability to integrate different perspectives and develop new competencies will be critical to the sustainability of companies in coming years. Companies will need to look outside their own operations to draw on expertise that is present in other parts of society. Many NGOs are recognising that solving many of the seemingly intractable problems that face society will require collaborative efforts that bring together the resources and skills of business and civil society.

Within this context, Earthwatch produced Business and Biodiversity in April this year, a practical guide for business to integrate biodiversity considerations into their environmental management systems — and an initiative that was welcomed by government. We have a long way to go before business really takes the issue of biodiversity conservation on board. It is much more challenging for companies than eco-efficiency and managing their emissions. It is about understanding difficult concepts of ecological footprint and ecosystem services, and Earthwatch plans to continue to work with companies to raise their awareness of these more complex areas of their global responsibility.

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^[*] Dr Jane Gilmour is the Director of the Earthwatch Australia.

email: [e-mail]

©2002 Jane Gilmour

Earthwatch has a global partnership with Rio Tinto (managed through Earthwatch Australia and Earthwatch Europe) and partnerships with a number of other major Australian companies including Shell, BP, Amcor, Wesfarmers and Woodside.